The Election Turns

Admittedly, this was from three weeks ago:

In the beauty shop of the hotel where I was staying in Washington DC last  week, there were two varieties of novelty lotion on sale. The ‘O’bama orange lotion was sold out; but there were a few forlorn bottles of ‘Mint’ Romney mint lotion still available. At the Newseum (which celebrates the work that us poor hacks do all over the world), a mock voting booth had Barack Obama beating Mitt Romney by around 60% to 40%. And lest these trends be seen as the reflection of the sentiments of what is admittedly a fairly liberal city with a large community of international workers, the Wall Street Journal reported on the weekend that Smith and Wesson, the gun manufacturer, had raised its sales forecast for 2012 by approximately 10%. Gun sales go up on the election of a Democratic President, tracking the fear that a leftist President would restrict gun ownership.

Of course, all these trends, as unscientific and anecdotal as they are, may not be an indicator of much, let alone an event as complicated and unpredictable as a Presidential election. But for the first time in months, Barack Obama has many of the trend lines moving in the right direction, in an election that was supposed to be a referendum on his handling of a particularly difficult set of economic circumstances. But international events, the gaffe-prone campaign style of a hapless challenger, and a steady hand on the tiller have meant that Obama may now be looking to sew up an election that should have been more testing than it is proving.

In American Presidential elections, there used to be a phenomenon known as the ‘October surprise’ – a last-minute bombshell that would tilt the election one way or the other.  The last two cycles, though, there have been September surprises, which have benefitted President Obama. On September 15 2008, Lehman Brothers, an investment bank, collapsed. While John McCain, the Republican candidate in that election, floundered like a beached fish – demanding the suspension of campaigning and rushing back to Washington DC to find that he wasn’t welcome, Senator Obama handled the crisis masterfully, taking charge of the Democratic reaction to the crisis. Congressional leaders deferred to him, and the image of the neophyte Senator as a national leader was cemented. On September 11 this year, the Middle East exploded (again). This time, the reaction was to a deliberately provocative online video that was deemed insulting to Muslims. The American Ambassador to Libya was murdered, along with three of his compatriots. Yet again, Obama issued a measured, yet muscular, response. And yet again, the Republican challenger floundered – attempting to make political capital from a tragic event. Romney criticised not only the President, but also embassy workers who had tweeted what seemed to be an apology for the insensitive video. But Romney’s condemnation of Obama (and of the embassy staff) was considered so ham-handed that even conservative commentators found it useful to tell him off for politicising what was supposed to be a sombre moment of reflection.

As I said earlier, this election may yet turn on another unknowable event. There are still three debates to come in October (and word is that Romney has been preparing exhaustively). The Israelis are rumbling ominously about taking unilateral action on Iran, which would complicate matters significantly for Obama (the last proper ‘October surprise’ was in 1980, and also involved Iran, and led to the downfall of a Democratic President, in this case Jimmy Carter). However, the current trends will warm the cockles of any Obama supporter. The election trends may just have turned, and Obama may be looking at another four years in the White House.